Stressed-out Enceladus (3-D)

This high-resolution stereo anaglyph of Saturn's moon Enceladus shows a region of craters softened by time and torn apart by tectonic stresses. Fractures 100 to 400 meters (330 to 1,300 feet) in width crosscut the terrain: One set trends northeast-southwest and another trends northwest-southeast. North is up. A region of "grooved terrain" is visible on the left. A broad canyon, its floor partly concealed by shadow, is notable on the right.

The images for this anaglyph were taken in visible light with Cassini's narrow-angle camera at distances from Enceladus ranging from about 25,700 kilometers (16,000 miles, red-colored image) to 5,200 kilometers (3,300 miles, blue-colored image) and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle ranging from 46 to 39 degrees. Pixel scale in the red image was 150 meters (490 feet) per pixel. Scale in the blue image was 30 meters (100 feet) per pixel.

A separate, non-stereo version of the scene, showing only the more-distant image, is also available (see Stressed-out Enceladus). The images have been contrast-enhanced to aid visibility.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute